


all the times you left me at home lonely

by carrionkid, psychedelia



Series: a friend of the devil is a friend of mine [3]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Cults, Earth-65, Gen, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 12:52:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19377094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrionkid/pseuds/carrionkid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedelia/pseuds/psychedelia
Summary: the year is 1969 and the road continues. elektra understands that taking bullseye with her changes things.





	1. elektra

**MARCH, 1969**

 

The skin around her eyes are dry and sore, and she has forgotten how pathetically long the effects of crying last, how long it marrs her skin and her vision and her thoughts. There is a weightlessness to her heart, as though it is being buoyed by the exact deep, murky waters that threaten to drown her. She has placed sunglasses on her eyes, and were Bullseye to ask, she would claim it was for the bright morning sun. 

She does not want him to see the weakness in her eyes. 

Even more than her lies, her claims that they are on a  _ Mission _ , she does not want him to see the puffy flesh of her face, the tear tracks in her cheeks, does not want even the thought of  _ Elektra is weak  _ to run through his painfully slow mind. One pitying glance, a glance she has received since she was no more than a child, from father, from doctors, from nurses and women and men  _ men men,  _ might be enough to ruin her, to force her to pull over once more and do this whole ridiculous dance over again.

She focuses on the drive.

After her furious mad-scramble away from the commune, it had taken her an hour to right their direction. At that point, the only thought in her head was  _ leave _ , no matter which way the road took her. But now, the silence of the car bubbles up and envelops her, and if the atmosphere had a color, it would be  _ green  _ and it would be  _ fire red  _ (like his-- She cuts it off before the muse can speak to her) and a different voice in the back of her mind whispers  _ West, West, West _ , and so she takes an exit that will slowly take them out of the East Coast and into the heart of the country. 

The trees on either side of the road yawn out to them, sickly thin limbs caressing the small car’s journey, and were she a superstitious woman, she would imagine them beckoning her, curling their pre-spring arms to push her on her journey. And of course, she is, in fact, superstitious on some days, with more and more frequency the longer she lived in that miserable House.

A House that reminded her of growing up isolated and alone and stranded and wanting, so desperately, her father. Or a mother, the woman whispered in hushed tones behind her back, the woman who brought her into this miserable world and left her to rot under the care of men who wanted nothing more than to make her a plaything. She misses her father, and she misses her apartment, but most of all, she does not miss the disgusting House that she has been living in with Bullseye, for any day now, she feels she would be dragged from its premises and locked up, locked up, locked up again for the sheer sin of anger and sight.

The atmosphere of the car bubbles and pops like neon tar, and her vision threatens to white out as her anger rises.

She focuses on the boy. A man, by all rights, but nothing more than a boy, and as they journey onwards, through the cascade of anorexic trees, she thinks,  _ I wonder if this child has even left New York before _ . As if summoned, as if he can read minds, he stretches in his seat, and though his limbs are short and he is curled over himself, in the small cabin of the Beetle Bug, his movements break whatever bubbly atmosphere had taken over it, as harsh and quick as popping bubblegum. Green and Fire Red dissipate like gaseous pheremones and Elektra allows her shoulders to drop a little, allows her knuckles to loosen up.

Bullseye, gracious as he is, gives her exactly one minute and twenty seconds before he starts in on his… Bullseye-isms.

“I’ve been sleepin’ for a while, and we’re still not in the city, and, and, and usually we’d be in the city by now, an’ me and Matty woulda been dropped  _ off  _ by now, and we’d be in a hotel somewhere, an’ maybe Matty would spend some time with me before he’s gotta go, and--” Bullseye pulls in a deep breath, the breath of a child who has forgotten to use his diaphragm when speaking and must overcompensate for his struggling lungs. He peers out the window at the road, and his brow is bunched up tightly, in a way that she would chide and threaten the risk of forehead wrinkles were the time less dire.

Matthew was good at ignoring him, cutting to the essentials of what Bullseye was actually saying, and responding in kind, but Elektra has no such patience to do as much of the mental work that Matthew was willing to do on Bullseye’s behalf. 

“Expedite your point.”  

Her voice in this car is as a viper’s, low and hissing, but she tries to keep the bite that threatens its way to her lips every time she speaks to a minimum.

Bullseye looks at her from under his hair, and Elektra ignores how piercing his eyes are. “How long’s this gonna take? City ain’t  _ that _ far away.” 

“We are not going to New York City. We do not know where Matthew is; he is likely not there.” 

The highway in front of them has ceased to amuse the brother in her passenger seat, and he continues to stare at her for quite some time, his mouth opening and closing, and then he opens it once more to likely babble some incessant prattle, or else to sit still like a frozen automaton, so Elektra grabs him by the wrist and forcibly places his hand over the knob to the radio. 

“Sleep, or amuse yourself some other way.”

“Well, I jus’ slept.” 

“Then there is your  _ answer _ . Let me focus on the  _ road _ .”

She refuses to look at him, pointedly keeping her eyes focused on the front windshield. There is silence, and then radio static, and Elektra’s next twenty minutes are filled with station after station being slipped through and pondered, and Bullseye begins to mumble quietly to himself in that way that he does when he believes no one is listening.

Six months ago, and it would have been unbearable. Now, it is almost comforting, in the way that the snore of a significant other can become charming, or the yowl of an alley cat can become a sign that all is well outside in the middle of the night. 

He lands on a Motown performance by a woman named Gladys Knight, and Elektra’s mouth twists into a silent snarl, because she knows that Matthew would like it.

* * *

 

She drives until the sun arches over the sky in its daily performance and begins its descent into a well-deserved sleep. By this point, the deep orange sunset hurts her eyes and her body aches bone-deep. If she were to draw it, paint it, her bones would be sun-bleached whale bones washing ashore the foamy beaches of Greece, an aberration in an almost celestial scene. 

Bullseye had amused himself with music, his grin spread wide across his face, and if she hadn't spent months and months with him, she wouldn't notice the tension taut around his eyes, the almost manic quality to his grin. 

The music is good, for him, but it is merely covering up the anxiety that lies underneath, like the downy feathers of a bird hidden by brilliant plumage. By the minute, he becomes more twitchy, more restless, and Elektra has to admit to herself that they cannot keep furiously driving over the American landscape without rest or food forever. 

After all, she was not lying when she said she wasn’t certain where Matthew is. This could take a while. And she refuses to let her body’s frail need for energy burn her desire to find him to ashes. 

She takes the next exit that promises a small motel, and by the time she pulls into the dull, badly in need of renovation parking lot, Bullseye is falling asleep again, the mane of blond hair pressed tight to the window as he struggles to keep his eyes open. She parks the car in front of the row of rooms, and then leans across the cabin to shake Bullseye gently. 

“Stay in the car.” In the fading light, she knows exactly how wild she probably appears, but she has ceased to care about these performances around Bullseye, a man-boy who would not know the difference between a sane woman and an insane one. 

“Where’re y’goin’?” He asks lazily, rolling his joints with an audible pop that reminds her of the way Matthew would stretch in the mornings, pushing things back into place that should never have been out of it. It had charmed her at first; now she’s certain those pops and aches exist through another web of lies constructed to snare her. He starts to sit up, his eyes wide and doll-like as they look at the motel rooms, a slight shiver running down him; Elektra can feel it where her nails still press into the skinny flesh of his arm.

“Getting the keys to a room. I will be back momentarily.”

She attempts to wrangle her hair into a semi-presentable state by the time she reaches the main building, her nails tearing through strands that aren’t as healthy as she’d like them to be; it just simply would not do to look like a runaway housewife, and she has scarcely any identification on her. But the clerk asks no questions  past a couple of curious looks, and Elektra keeps her face neutral and harsh as she pays for the room and sequesters the keys from the man. 

Room 6.

Her thought’s Muse laughs at her, whispers all sorts of things about Matthew, and she silences it with heavy steps out of the clerk’s office. 

She unlocks the room first, gives it a cautionary once over, before returning to the car and opening the passenger side door. It makes Bullseye startle, his eyes wide and his arms broken out into goose pimples. 

“Come. I have a room for us.” 

“How long we stayin’ here?” He begins to untangle himself from the car, making careful movements not to tangle his hair further and yank it. 

“Just the night. We will rise early tomorrow and continue our journey.”

“Oh.”

Elektra reaches around through the passenger seat to grab their few belongings, and a bag of the few necessities they own. 

Matthew’s sais catch her eyes, and she grabs them, delicately, feeling a sense of calm wash over her with them in her possession. Though Bullseye is a foolish, frivolous thing, she is… Glad he handed these to her, with that mischievous light in his eyes that spoke of him breaking his own preconceived rules about the world. 

She tries not to think about what these weapons have seen.

“We are washing your hair tonight. I refuse to let you walk around looking like  _ that _ while we traverse the country.”

She feels she might lose her grip on the Now if she has no task to attend to, and Bullseye's hair is certainly a  _ task.  _ Matthew had practiced hands, and even so, when he deigned to braid it to keep the hair out of Bullseye's face, it had taken upwards of an hour. 

Bullseye follows dutifully behind her once she locks the car up, his feet scuffling and kicking up dust in the parking lot. As they reach the doorway of the motel, he shivers again and says, “I think my hair’ll be fine, ‘Lektra. I jus’ wanna sleep.”

“Your hair most definitely will not be fine.” She flicks the lights on, bathing the small room in amber light. The bed is a full, and there is even a small television sitting on the dresser. At least she will be able to amuse Bullseye once she cleans his hair and has to brush the knots out. She locks the door behind her and sets the bag down on the bed. 

“No one ever sees me all that much on Missions, ‘Lektra. And I’m tired, woke me up jus’ when I was fallin’ back to sleep.”

“I want us to look presentable when we find Matthew,” She does not quite snap, but it is a near thing.

That gets her a blank look, but Bullseye is prone to casting those about; she thinks often how he reminds her of the moon, emitting a strange pale glow and looking so perilously empty. It is the dichotomy between these brothers-- one fiery and red and glowing brighter than the sun, so hot as to be burning, burning, and this pale, strange little fae creature bathed in moonlight and sorrow. She wonders what that makes her, but she has been unable to see her own aura for as long as she has breathed. 

“We either do it  _ now _ , or in the morning, when you are half asleep and will not appreciate the roughness of a brush on your scalp.” She presses her lips thinly together when even that gets barely a response, a thick brush from her bag held tight in her fist, and she has to all but herd Bullseye to the bed so he will sit down and not look so  _ thin _ and  _ pathetic _ . 

She knew taking him would cause complications, and she knows that this minor annoyance is the least of the issues that Matthew’s disgustingly infantile brother brings to the table. But there is something within her, deeper than the muses, deeper than even the voices who crawl and squirm and wriggle their way through her throat sometimes, that wants to scream out loud at the idea of taking care of a man like a child, when she barely has the mental fortitude to take care of herself. 

Even now, with the sun fading into the night, her skin shivers and wishes to shake, because she is not attending the nightly prayers that she has grown accustomed to. Because her body will not receive the mind-numbing and bending drugs that make up the backbone of what was her home for more than six months, now. She wants nothing more than to curl up into the thin and cheap sheets of the motel bed and hibernate for months, months, months until she emerges as though a cocooned caterpillar into a butterfly. 

Or, she thinks wryly, a moth, considering she is tasked with providing for the moony loony brother.

“So, decide, while I am getting food for us, what you would prefer to do.” She keeps her hand pressed to his shoulder and manages to get a nod out of him, but it is not very convincing, and she has to swallow a thick globule of irate fury. 

She grabs the keys from the table, and, on her way out, turns the television on, so the motel isn’t, at least, so suffocatingly silent. 

* * *

 

There is a small diner in the minuscule town they’ve landed in, and so she gets takeout from there. She would have gotten something cheaper, something more on-the-go, but on the way, Elektra realized she had never seen Bullseye eat anything that was not fresh from the commune; she is not certain he would handle grease well, and tonight is not the night test that theory out. 

So she buys them both salads, and some coffees, and chili for good measure. It smells atrocious, and were she not so careful in her integration and game with American culture and cuisine, her nose would turn up and away from the pedestrian quality of it. The diner, too, reeked of cigarettes, grease, and long-faded desperation; she is not certain Bullseye would even manage to sit through a dinner without throwing one of his fits, either through sheer social overwhelming, or sensory overload.

She places the takeout containers on the bed next to Bullseye when she returns, then thinks better of it and moves the soup containers to the table. His eyes are glued to the television and his fingers are picking at the flesh of his arms, like a nervous tick. She gives a half-interested look at the television and sees that it is the one with the family of monsters, freaks by their own rights, the black and white color grading deep and gothic. 

And Bullseye is not screaming, or crying, or throwing things, but he does not look well-settled, and when Elektra all but shoves the container with salad in his face, he looks up at her owlishly and says, “Hope we find him real soon, ‘cause I really don’t like bein’ away from Home all that often. We gotta get him back soon.” 

She gives him a thin smile that does little to cover the way her teeth want to bare themselves at him. “We will do our best. Eat; I will not have you starve along the way.”

Money will be a concern eventually; she sequestered as much as she could, but it was not an easy task, not with the slowly strangling fingers of the commune destroying her autonomy and independence slowly, slowly, like the old adage of the frog in a pot of boiling water.

But it is no worrying matter right now, so she sits prim at the table, and instead thinks about her own hands wrapping themselves around Matthew’s neck and twisting, twisting until he has just an  _ idea _ of what he has done to her. It makes her smile, giddy, but it also ruins her appetite to think of him, so she drinks her coffee and ignores Bullseye for the moment, and allows herself to ride the tumultuous waves of anger, hoping it will not erode her into nothing but bone.


	2. bullseye

_**MARCH, 1969** _

Elektra’s awful quiet after she sets back to drivin’, which isn’t so odd on account of the fact that she doesn’t talk all that much, and when she does, it sounds like she’s got a good idea of just how many words God set aside for her during her time on this earth. Real careful-like, strung together all slow and measured. But it sets his teeth on edge somethin’ awful, feels like a bad sign.

And they’ve been drivin’ for a real long time, and Matty’s got a tendency to chide him for not bein’ able to sit still but he’s been doin’ good for the whole ride. It’s just a lot farther than he thought it’d be. It’d be nice, even, just watchin’ the different signs on the road go by, how everything always looks about the same, but he’s got this terrible, suffocating feeling. All twisted up in his guts, wrapped around his heart, makes him feel like he’s gonna get locked up, get stuck, in that awful way Mr. Fisk always seemed to hate.

So he stretches out, just so he knows he can still move, even if there isn’t all that much space in Elektra’s little car. It’s good that he can manage it, ‘cos that means he’s still doin’ alright even if he really doesn’t feel like it. Elektra must’ve noticed it, though, ‘cos she kinda folds over herself like she’s been carrying the whole wide world on her back.

“I’ve been sleepin’ for a while, and we’re still not in the city, and, and, and usually we’d be in the city by now, an’ me and Matty woulda been dropped  _ off  _ by now, and we’d be in a hotel somewhere, an’ maybe Matty would spend some time with me before he’s gotta go, and--” he can’t help it, really, Mr. Wesley says nobody likes it when he can’t be concise but he’s awful nervous and by the end, he’s just trailed off, empty and hollow and sucking in air but he can’t quite remember how he oughta be breathing.

“Expedite your point.”

Elektra sounds real irritated, but she usually does and he’s used to it from Matty, anyways. But Matty was always pretty nice when they were out on Missions, on account of him knowin’ that Bullseye doesn’t really leave Home all that much.

“How long’s this gonna take?” He finds himself bitin’ at his nails, kinda whispering around his fingers, “City ain’t that far away.”

And he’s watchin’ Elektra real careful, ‘cos she’s like Matty and sometimes she says things that don’t always line up with her words and he’s gotta pick ‘em apart. She thinks he’s stupid, even when she’s bein’ nice. But he’s  _ not _ . Sure isn’t booksmart, but he got by just fine almost fifteen years without being learnt anything in a book.

He’s clever. That’s what Mr. Fisk always says.

“We are not going to New York City,” she says, like he oughta figured that out already, “We do not know where Matthew is; he is likely not there.”

And he’s been keepin’ it together so good so far, bein’ calm an’ quiet an’ lettin’ Elektra do what she’s gotta do for the Mission, but this is goin’ a mite too far. He’s gone all slack-jawed and Mr. Fisk always tells him to close his mouth before he starts catchin’ flies but he just can’t do it. When he finally  _ can  _ manage that, he can’t even manage to make any words.

So he’s just stuck starin’ at her and it really, really, feels like his heart is breaking. Crackin’ right in two and letting all the warmth and goodness inside of him bleed out and it hurts more than anything he’s felt, even more than when he fell outta one of the trees back Home an’ broke his arm.

Elektra grabs his wrist, the one belongin’ to the nails he’s been chewin’ on ‘cos that’s closest to her. Pulls his hand right from where he’s stuck holdin’ it in front of his mouth and puts it on the knob on the dashboard. He knows it’s a radio, knows it ‘cos Mr. Wesley told him what it was when he kept on leaning up into the front seat and askin’ questions during one of their Missions.

“Sleep,” Elektra says, sharp as Matty’s sais in the back seat, “Or amuse yourself some  _ other  _ way.”

“Well, I  _ jus’  _ slept.”

He’s feelin’ awful fed up and frustrated, but it takes his mind off of how antsy he is.

“Then there is your  _ answer.  _ Let me focus on the  _ road.” _

She doesn’t even look at him, which just makes him all the more twitchy. He likes it when people are payin’ attention to him, makes him feel  _ real.  _ Like he’s actually there and not stuck somewhere else. 

Must be why Matty likes her so much, though, ‘cos it took Bullseye an awful long time to get used to Matty not ever lookin’ right at him. Just near enough that most people don’t think about it too much.

So he figures he’ll just have to get used to it from Elektra, too. And then he sets to twistin’ the knobs on the radio. Not quite sure what he’s ‘sposed to do, though, ‘cos one of the recruits had a radio once but he wasn’t ever allowed to touch it and eventually, the recruit came Home to stay an’ didn’t have a radio anymore.

It starts out on static, kinda sharp and not all that nice to listen to, but he figures out right quick that if he keeps on twistin’, eventually he’ll get to music. But he’s not too sure what kinda music Elektra likes, much less what kinda music he likes, ‘cos there wasn’t too much music back Home other than the couple o’ people who had guitars and the like. And it’s real nice to keep on turnin’ the dial, never had anythin’ like that back Home.

He spends a little bit of time on each different pocket of music he finds, tryin’ to make up his mind but all of it’s so strange that he isn’t too keen on much of anything. Everything about this is awful strange, more than just the music. And Elektra’s face keeps on twitching while he keeps on searching and he figures he’s not ‘sposed to be doing this.

So he settles on somethin’, not as harsh as some of the other music he’s found. Singer’s got a nice, full voice and it kinda reminds him of bein’ back Home, listenin’ to someone singin’ at one of the bonfires. Almost makes him settle down a mite, even if she’s not singin’ about anything he’d ever hear about back Home.

But Elektra doesn’t seem to like it much. She’s holding the steering wheel so tight, her knuckles are white as a ghost and she’s snarling, like the song’s liable to bite her if she lets her guard down.

* * *

He’s gotta admit, music’s growin’ on him a mite. It’s awful nice to be able to hear so many different voices and so many different songs, all in such a small place, but it isn’t quite enough to get him to stop thinkin’ about how much this all hurts. He’s smilin’, but it’s kinda desperate. Like he might not be able to stay all nice and quiet if he isn’t smilin’.

The sun’s starting to wander on down, though, which means he’s been away from Home for almost a whole entire day. Not that he hasn’t done that before, but this is different ‘cos it’s the first day he’s been away from Home without Matty around. But if he starts chasin’ those thoughts too much, he’ll go back to chewin’ on his nails even while he’s tryin’ to keep on smiling.

And he wants to be good for Elektra, but it’s gettin’ hard when she keeps on glancing over at him, like she’s tryin’ to catch him doin’ something wrong. But he’s not doin’ anything wrong, save for gettin’ antsy.

Doesn’t take long before Elektra turns off the big road onto a smaller one, kinda winding and slow. Looks like she knows where she’s going, which helps to ease the tangled knot in the pit of his stomach and he ends up restin’ his head against the window again.

With such a windy road, it’s easy to slip back to sleep again, but he doesn’t quite make it there before Elektra stops the car somewhere. Knows it’s stopped, too, but he doesn’t see much point in gettin’ up ‘cos he’s not sure he’ll be able to walk after so long stuck in a car.

She still grabs him by the arm, though, shakes him as gentle as she seems like she’s able to. He twists around to face her, rubbing at his eyes and lookin’ at her so she knows he’s payin’ attention.

“Stay in the car.”

He stretches out, lets his joints pop, tryin’ to loosen up a mite, “Where’re y’goin?”

And then he sits up, still got his knees drawn up to his chest, and finally takes stock of where they are. They’re parked at a motel somewhere, rows of rooms with closed doors and numbers on the front spread out across the horizon. They aren’t too nice of a color, kinda muddy, but he’s not all that good with colors anyway. But somethin’ about them makes him nervous, sends a shiver from head to toe. Elektra’s still holding onto him and she squeezes him a second, like she’s tryin’ to reassure him.

“Getting the keys to a room. I will be back momentarily.”

And she tucks her hair back behind her ears, kinda frantic about it. Checkin’ herself in the mirror. It’s not all that interestin’, so he turns back to the motel rooms. Looks like the kinda place he’d stay with Matty when they were out on a Mission, but this motel’s in the middle of the woods, nothin’ like the other ones. 

He barely even notices when Elektra leaves. Only flinches a mite when she shuts the door behind herself. He wonders if they’re gonna have one bed or two. If she’s gonna mind if he slips in next to her when he can’t sleep ‘cos he can’t stand the kinda sounds that come along with bein’ away from Home. Never has to deal with cars rushin’ by when he’s at Home, or with people yellin’ or sirens goin’ off or anythin’ like that.

And then the door opens and he gets all wide-eyed and scared, blood runnin’ cold inside him. But he’s good, doesn’t use his Gift or nothin’ ‘cos he figures it’s probably Elektra comin’ back to get him and he doesn’t want to hurt her at all. Not even by accident, ‘cos she’s the only one who might be able to help him find Matty.

“Come,” she says, kinda soft for once, “I have a room for us.”

“How long we stayin’ here?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer before startin’ to unwind. It’s nice to find that he’s not all that stiff, like he was worried about. But he’s gotta be careful ‘cos otherwise his hair’s gonna get tangled up and Matty hasn’t been around to help out with it for a good while now.

“Just the night. We will rise early tomorrow and continue our journey.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t think that finding Matty would be too easy, but he doesn’t much like the idea of gettin’ back on the road and drivin’ on and on and on. They must be awful far away from Home by now and going far away means it’ll just take longer to get back and there’s nothin’ he hates more than spending too much time out in this part of the world.

Elektra gets their things out of the back while he works up the nerve to get out of the car. She’s even got Matty’s sais with her, and that kind of eases the tightness in his chest. Makes it a mite easier to breathe ‘cos if she’s got Matty’s sais, then she’s leading the Mission, and she’s in charge and she’ll take care of him and make sure he gets Home alright.

Once he’s standing up, she looks him over, head to toe. Makes him shiver.

“We are washing your hair tonight. I refuse to let you walk around looking like  _ that,”  _ her nose wrinkles and he can’t seem to find what’s wrong with the way he looks, “While we traverse the country.”

She locks the car up after that, heads off to their room and he’s hot on her heels like he’s her shadow. But it oughta be the other way around, the way her hair’s all dark and she’s stretched out longer than he is. And he doesn’t say anything ‘til he gets to the doorway of their room and he remembers just how different the world out here is, how it always hurts like he’s tryin’ to make his way through a patch of nettles when he’s tryin’ to fit in like Matty does.

“I think my hair’ll be fine, ‘Lektra,” he says, awful small ‘cos he knows it’s a lie, Matty always tried to make sure he looked just right before they went out on Missions, “I jus’ wanna sleep.”

“Your hair most definitely will  _ not  _ be fine,” she leads the two of them inside, flicks on all the lights.

There’s only one bed, and it sure looks big enough for two, and it kinda makes him smile when he thinks about the fact that Missions sure seemed to be the only time when Matty didn’t have to make out like it was a secret that Bullseye got scared in the night an’ wanted to be close to him.

Elektra shoos him further into the room an’ locks the door behind her. Then, she sets all the bags on the bed and he’s stuck wonderin’ if she’d be mad if he jumped on it. Probably would be, always says he acts too much like a child.

“No one ever sees me all that much on Missions, ‘Lektra. And I’m tired, woke me up jus’ when I was fallin’ back to sleep.”

“I want us to look presentable when we find Matthew.”

He’s frozen in place, tryin’ to puzzle that one out. The way she says it makes it sound like they might find Matty tomorrow if they’re real lucky, but everything else she’s been sayin’ makes it sound like this could take ages.

“We either do it  _ now,”  _ Elektra says, brandishing a brush like she’s Matty with a knife, “Or in the morning, when you are half asleep and will not appreciate the roughness of a brush on your scalp.”

But he can’t even say much of anything, just feels like the world’s ending and it’s nothin’ like the Rapture, it’s just terrifying, weighing all down on him at once, and he’d love to curl up small and wake up back Home but that’s not gonna happen. He knows that much, deep down in his heart.

Elektra draws her lips to a thin line and pushes him over to the bed and presses him down, a hand on each shoulder, until he’s sitting. He’s been tryin’ to keep her happy, but right about now, he can’t even think too good and he can’t even talk at all. 

Back Home, right about now, they’d be praying. And he figures he is praying, in a way. 

He just sits on the bed and wrings his hands over and over, waitin’ for Elektra to say somethin’ instead of expectin’ him to manage it. Waitin’ for this all to be over and for him to be back Home where everything’s right and he’s never this scared and he’s got Matty and Elektra both, forever.

Elektra looks about as run ragged as he does, though, so he doesn’t feel too lonely. She’s tryin’ to look angry but he figures she’s tired and she’s scared, too, otherwise she wouldn’t be so twitchy. It helps, a bit. He’s never seen Matty look scared and it’s partway nice to know he’s not alone.

“So,” she’s still got one hand on his shoulder, “Decide, while I am getting food for us, what you would prefer to do.”

And she’s watching him, like she’s lookin’ for somethin’. So he nods, stiff-like and aimless. But it’s good enough for her, ‘cos she grabs the keys to the room and turns the television on and leaves him there.

He’d like to settle down enough to enjoy it, ‘cos the only times he ever gets to watch shows are when he’s out on a Mission, but he can’t. Can’t do much of anything other than sit there and twist his hands, over and over and over. He’s got an awful habit of gettin’ stuck prayin’ without words, but nobody seems to catch on.

* * *

By the time Elektra gets back, he’s moved on to pickin’ at his arms. Got a lot of old scabs from runnin’ around in the woods back Home and by tomorrow they’re gonna be new scabs. He’s not exactly watchin’ what’s on but he’s  _ trying  _ his best to pay attention. Elektra sets some food down next to him, changes her mind and gets back up, moves it to the table. By the time she’s back by his side, he still hasn’t quite made it to moving. 

Maybe he’s being punished, maybe this is why this Mission hurts so much. But he can’t think of anything he might’ve done that would make him deserving of this. He’s been good, he’s always been good.

Elektra’s tryin’ to get him to eat and he figures they weren’t livin’ together long enough for her to figure out that sometimes he can’t do much of anything at all and it makes him miss Matty all that much more.

So he turns to look at her, “Hope we find him real soon, ‘cos I really don’t like bein’ away from Home all that often. We  _ gotta  _ get him back soon.”

“We will do our best,” she smiles, but there’s somethin’ awful off about it, like she’s not too sure she wants to be smiling, “Eat; I will not have you starve along the way.”

So he takes the container of salad from her, even makes an attempt to pick at it ‘cos she’s the leader of this Mission and he’s gotta do what she says. And he really is hungry, didn’t eat all day and now that he’s got some space to think, it’s harder to ignore how hungry he is.

Elektra sits at the little table, all posed like a picture come to life. And she’s a liar ‘cos she’s not even eating, won’t follow her own instructions. She keeps on drinking from the little cup twisted tight between her hands and smiling all private-like. Looks like she’s enjoyin’ whatever she’s thinkin’ about, too. Not like that first smile. Nothin’ like it at all.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [Elektra's POV](https://sekwoja.tumblr.com) and [Bullseye's POV](https://bullseyemutual.tumblr.com). Check us out; we're cool cats.


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